Meet TVNZ's new weatherman

TV One's weather stalwart Jim Hickey will soon have a new colleague in the weather room.

TVNZ said Hickey and colleague Karen Olsen would be joined by former BBC presenter Daniel Corbett next week.

Corbett, who finished up a three-year stint with MetService in May, was born in Essex and has a BSc in Meteorology from the State University of New York.

He cut his teeth in the United States, kick-starting his television career in Alabama in 1990, before moving on to a notorious part of Texas known as tornado alley.

When he moved back to the UK in 2004, he took up a spot at the BBC which included broadcasting across all the corporation's TV and radio channels. He was also part of the BBC Sport team which presented weather during the Wimbledon tennis championship for several years.

Corbett, who is due to appear on One News on Monday, said he was looking forward to returning to broadcasting.

"Doing weather in New Zealand is different to anywhere else in the world. The country sits in between the tropics and Antarctica, surrounded by ocean which means we get these huge contrasts - bringing intense, dramatic weather. It doesn't come in small doses - it really throws everything at us including the kitchen sink!"

A TVNZ spokeswoman said Corbett would be sharing shifts with Olsen and Hickey.

No one's hours were due to be cut back "in the near future," she said.